Staff

It’s a new dawn for eXodus eSports as renowned Planetary Annihilation player AndreasG joins the team. The organiser of the AndreasG Casual 3 and AndreasG Pro 3, this individual so modest he named his tournaments after himself will be working as a Tournament Admin. What does that mean? Simply put he’ll be helping us to continue putting on great tournaments for the Planetary Annihilation community, as well as help expand our every growing pool of community maps.

When asked if working for eXodus was everything he ever dreamed it could be, AndreasG had this to say:

“That is one way to put it. I like to think that eXodus chose me, I didn’t chose it. I never wanted fame, but the fame wanted me.”

We’re excited to announce that mikeyh has joined the eXodus team. He’s best known for the Faster Server Browser mod, considered by many to be absolutely essential to the degree that Uber integrated many of his changes into the game. You may also know him for palobby.com, which provides a means by which to view lobbies and participate in global chat even without the game open.

I just wake up and everything has changed. – mikeyh

His work doesn’t stop there though and he’s been a prolific contributor to projects across the community, one of the exceptional talents that Planetary Annihilation has attracted. And now he’s with eXodus, helping us to take our site to the next level.

We here at eXodus eSports would like to welcome our newest member, TotalAnnihilation! He joins us as a Planet Architect, having previously refined his skills with PACE.

Numerous events, from the Super Swiss Tournament to the Progenitor Cup, have had carefully designed systems provided to maximise spawn fairness and metal distribution to make for the best games possible. The Team Genesis is responsible for these creations, a group of skilled players and map designers who work tirelessly for your benefit. Total Annihilation will be joining Tripax and Captain Conundrum in heading up this team.

Expect to see some live streams of us testing Genesis maps in the future.

Uber Entertainment have just announced that they’ve hired a new Director of Production for Planetary Annihilation. Known as “jables” he has experience with this style of RTS through his time on Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance.

Hey there. I’m Jeremy, known to some of you as “jables”. I’ve joined Uber as the new Director of Production, with the focus of developing processes and standards to better prioritize and communicate our updates moving forward.

Prior to joining Uber, I worked on many games, including Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. I worked with the community and the team to focus development toward making the game we all wanted it to be. Here at Uber, I’ll be following a similar path, working to keep our goals in line with the community’s desires, as well as better communicate our updates moving forward.

UPDATE: jables has provided further information on what the first offline server update will look like.

Offline server step 1:

Ability to play Galactic War offline (can still play online as well, adjusted under settings)

AI skirmish games playable offline (can still play online as well, adjusted under settings)

Ability to create LAN games

In a LAN game, ability to play co-op or competitive with friends (and AIs, hi Sorian!)

You’ll notice I said step 1 there. We have larger plans for the server in the future, including polishing the current work, as well as allowing you to set up your own server that will show up on our network!

While we are on the topic, I wanted to discuss the limitations of step 1, so as to set clear expectations as to what we are delivering.

Just to call this out separate as it is important. 64-bit only is current min spec (we are honestly not sure if this will change in the future, but current tests point that it may not).

Recommended spec for offline is the same as our recommended Steam specs, and they should play what we have seen as a more normal play experience. If you want to do huge systems, or mod to some crazy numbers of players, you will possibly need a beefier machine.

64bit

Quad core processor

8GB ram

Once you create a server, you need to currently stay in it or it will go away. Stand alone servers are technically possible, but will require some modding for now (aka, we didn’t turn it off, but we are not yet comfortable with the polish level to officially support it. Have fun modders 🙂 )

If you use the Uber Launcher, it still requires you to log in, as that is how the launcher is set up. If you wish to skip this, simply use the PA.exe.

If you launch it from Steam launcher while offline, it should work as expected and simply run offline.

And lastly, we will continue to work on this. This is really important to us, and we have been working on it for a while now. This is by no means the finished server, and we have a lot more improvements we want to get in place, but coming in and looking over community wishlists, this has always been very high on your wants. We listened, and are getting it out in parts, as opposed to waiting until it is completely finished with every little thing we want. This is an exciting change for us, as it allows you to get your hands on things sooner, rather than later.

On top of the offline server part of the update, we will also be releasing pathfinding improvements and some system editor polish.

Pathing will now better handle complex terrain (really, just overall pathing improvements, less units getting confused, smarter choices on paths, and much less not making it to final destination)

CPU and memory usage have been reduced overall (which is of course ongoing)

System Editor UI improvements (which are ongoing, so you will see even more in the future)

It was a short but sweet romance. Unfortunately, Pizzalover3000 – our resident artist responsible for cranking out much of the sweet new artwork you see across the site – is leaving our ranks. Paying work and shrinking free time have forced him to join Martenus and thesambasti among the ranks of those who still belong to eXodus but are no longer an active part of day-to-day operations. We hope you’ll find the time to rejoin us one day. Salute!

That means we have an opening for a new artist. If you think you have the skills and are happy to work simply for the joy of art, and the praise (and constructive criticism) of appreciative eXodus staffers, then drop us a line via the contact form referencing any existing work. We look forward to hearing from you.

One of the best casters Planetary Annihilation has, it is a testament to his talent that Uber Entertainment flew him out on their dime to cast games in front of a live audience at PAX Prime 2014. Few are more passionate about this game than WPMarshall, and it is this drive to cast whenever he could that makes him great and more than worthy of a place at eXodus eSports.

Asked on his thoughts, he had this to say:

Hours stalking the eXodus team after each King of the Planet have finally paid off.

It is truly a relief that I will no longer need to hide in the bedroom every time the exterior lights kick in.

After working closely together in order to put on the King of the Planet series of events, we at eXodus eSports are happy to welcome Quitch* and Captain Conundrum* as the newest members of our team. As full team members they will no longer focus exclusively on King of the Planet, but work on all aspects of our Planetary Annihilation activity, including videos, tournaments, and guides. Quitch had this to say:

I can’t believe [Captain Conundrum] is still tailing me, didn’t I get a restraining order or something?

eXodus eSports has already been working closely with the King of the Planet series, both in administration and broadcasting. With this change, KotP will now be run entirely under eXodus, meaning you can find all future news and content in our King of the Planet section, and future broadcasts on our stream. In celebration, we’re releasing a new trailer! Just a note, we’re not running a series this weekend because of the PACE event, and we’ll also miss one in 2 weeks because of something epic you’ll hear more about soon.